Police shifted from search to recovery after Chilima wreckage found, ex-IG tells MPs

Malawi’s former Inspector General of Police has mounted a robust defence of the force’s handling of the June 2024 plane crash that killed former vice-president Saulos Chilima and eight others, telling MPs her actions were guided entirely by the information available to her at the time.

Merlyne Yolamu appeared before the parliamentary ad-hoc committee investigating the tragedy, insisting her responsibility had been to respond to the intelligence she received, mobilise available resources and launch the search and rescue operation through the police’s established command structure.

The former police chief revealed that the force’s director of operations travelled to the Northern Region on the morning of June 11, 2024, to join the Northern Region commissioner and other officers already engaged in the frantic hunt for the missing aircraft.

But the search would soon turn to tragedy.

Yolamu told the inquiry that once the wreckage was discovered, both the director of operations and the regional commissioner personally informed her of the devastating news.

From that moment, she explained, the nature of police involvement changed dramatically, shifting from a search for the missing plane to supporting management of the crash scene and the grim recovery operation that followed.

Yolamu said police continued working alongside the Malawi Defence Force and other stakeholders to transport the bodies of the victims after the wreckage was located.

The inquiry is expected to hear further testimony today from current Inspector General Richard Luhanga, who was serving as Northern Region Commissioner of Police at the time of the crash, as well as Glinton Mitaye, then deputy commissioner for the region.